SYNENERGENE Calls for Proposals/Rathenau Instituut

From 2014.igem.org

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<h4>Requirements</h4>
<h4>Requirements</h4>
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<p>Each selected iGEM team will develop two different kinds of future scenarios relating to their project and its application:
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<p>Each selected iGEM team will develop two different kinds of future scenarios relating to their project and its applications:
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<p style="text-indent:0em;">Application scenarios offer detailed and realistic descriptions of how SynBio ideas can lead to actual applications in society, including: design criteria for the products proposed, target producers and users of the products, the needs and costs involved, legal issues of patenting, regulatory requirements, potential safety, social and ethical implications, and available or conceivable alternatives.</p></li>
<p style="text-indent:0em;">Application scenarios offer detailed and realistic descriptions of how SynBio ideas can lead to actual applications in society, including: design criteria for the products proposed, target producers and users of the products, the needs and costs involved, legal issues of patenting, regulatory requirements, potential safety, social and ethical implications, and available or conceivable alternatives.</p></li>
<li><strong>Techno-moral scenarios</strong>
<li><strong>Techno-moral scenarios</strong>
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<p style="text-indent:0em;">A techno-moral scenario is a tool to stimulate imagination, reflection and debate about ways in which SynBio applications may transform our society through wider impacts, including ethical, legal and social issues.</p></li>
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<p style="text-indent:0em;">A techno-moral scenario is a story, artwork, etc. intended to stimulate imagination, reflection and debate about ways in which SynBio applications may transform our society through wider impacts, including ethical, legal and social issues.</p></li>
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<p>SYNENERGENE partners will take up the scenarios as a starting point for an interactive process of technology assessment, involving a variety of stakeholders and iGEM team members in workshop settings with the aim to develop socially robust agendas for SynBio innovation. Scenarios will also be used by SYNENERGENE partners as a tool in organizing public debates on SynBio futures. Please expand the boxes below to read more about the scenarios that selected iGEM teams will deliver, and about the envisaged process of Real-Time Technology Assessment.</p>
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<p>SYNENERGENE partners will take up the scenarios as a starting point for an interactive process of technology assessment, involving a variety of stakeholders and iGEM team members in workshop settings. The ultimate aim of these workshops is develop socially robust agendas for SynBio innovation. The scenarios will also be used by SYNENERGENE partners as a tool in organizing public debates on the future of SynBio. Please expand the boxes below to read more about the scenarios that selected iGEM teams will deliver, and about the envisaged process of Real-Time Technology Assessment.</p>
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         <h3>Application Scenarios</h3>
         <h3>Application Scenarios</h3>
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         <p>An important step in the development of application scenarios is to identify and specify the practices and conditions in which particular SynBio applications envisaged by your team might be produced and used. How does these practices look like, who is involved in what role, and how will these practices be changed and affected by the new applications? Knowledge about the experiences and visions of actors involved in these practices is vital for the elaboration of future application scenarios. Some iGEM teams have elaborated in their projects ideas about the future application of their work in ways that exemplify our notion of "Application Scenario". Two interesting examples are described below. (You may find other, more recent examples from other teams on the iGEM website.)</p>
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         <p>To develop application scenarios, you must identify and specify the practices and conditions in which particular SynBio applications envisaged by your team might be produced and used. What do these practices look like, who is involved in what role, and how will these practices be changed and affected by the new applications? Knowledge about the experiences and visions of actors involved in these practices is vital for the elaboration of future application scenarios. Below are two descriptions of work that previous teams have done to develop ideas about the future application of their projects. These examples illustrate our notion of an "Application Scenario".</p>
      
      
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             <h4><a href="https://2010.igem.org/Team:BCCS-Bristol">AgrEcoli: saving the world one field at a time</a></h4>
             <h4><a href="https://2010.igem.org/Team:BCCS-Bristol">AgrEcoli: saving the world one field at a time</a></h4>
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             <p>The Bristol team worked on a device based on modified E.coli bacteria that is able to detect and signal the presence of nitrates in soil. Encapsulated in small beads, agrEcoli bacteria may be mixed with seeds and spread simultaneously on the land. The bacteria express fluorescent signals upon nutrient detection and thus may allow farmers to map soil nutrient content of their fields and optimize their fertilizer use. Applied in this way, agrEcoli bacteria may help to reduce excess fertilizer use to the benefit of both farmers and the environment.</p>
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             <p>The Bristol team developed E.coli bacteria that are able to detect and signal the presence of nitrates in soil. Encapsulated in small beads, agrEcoli bacteria may be mixed with seeds and spread simultaneously on the land. The bacteria express fluorescent signals upon nutrient detection, and thus may allow farmers to map soil nutrient content of their fields and optimize their fertilizer use. Applied in this way, agrEcoli bacteria may help to reduce excess fertilizer use, to the benefit of both farmers and the environment.</p>
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             <p>Based on wet lab and modelling work, the team produced a functioning prototype, which in the lab could successfuly detect and react to nutrient levels in the soil. In their human practice work the team further specified the hypothetical properties that their product should possess for a successful market introduction, using predictions based on their prototype and information about how arable farmers might wish to use it. The team defined smaller-scale farmers as the target market for their product and accordingly specified the engineering requirements that the product would have to satisfy, given established practices of farming and important conditions of cost and safety. The team also compared their approach to already available alternative methods to estimate nutrient needs of arable land, such us satellite imaging technology.</p>
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             <p>Based on wet lab and modelling work, the team produced a functioning prototype, which in the lab could successfully detect and react to nutrient levels in the soil. Going further, the team specified the hypothetical properties that their product should possess for a successful market introduction, using predictions based on their prototype and information about how farmers might wish to use it. The team chose smaller-scale farmers as the target market for their product, and accordingly specified the engineering requirements that the product would have to satisfy, given established practices of farming and important conditions of cost and safety. The team also compared their approach to existing methods of estimating the nutrient needs of arable land (such as satellite imaging).</p>
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             <p>Thus the team ended with a final specification for how their product would work, the form it would take and the trials and tests that it would have to pass. Based on this application scenario the team decided to focus their human practice work on issues of public perception in order to find out how to get public support for their hypothetical product. The team reasoned that without public support their product probably might not be developed and introduced on the market. The team translated findings from public perception studies into the design for a product information leaflet that might be used in a public information and awareness raising campaign. Finally the team considered some of the legislative and regulatory hurdles that would have to be considered in the process of product development.</p>
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             <p>Thus, the team ended with a final specification for how their product would work, the form it would take, and the tests it would have to pass before coming to market. Based on this application scenario, the team decided to examine issues of public perception in order to find out how to get public support for their hypothetical product. They examined the results of public perception studies, and translated those results into the design of a product information leaflet that might be used in a public awareness campaign. Finally, the team considered some of the legislative and regulatory hurdles that would have to be considered in developing their agrEcoli bacteria for commercial release.</p>
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Revision as of 17:29, 16 April 2014

DRAFT

Take your iGEM Project to the next level!

Partner: Rathenau Instituut

Due date: May 30, 2014
Questions: contact Virgil Rerimassie, v.rerimassie AT rathenau.nl

Is your iGEM team looking for an exciting Policy & Practices challenge? Would you like to take your project to the next level by exploring it with various stakeholders? And would you like to get support and funding throughout this entire process? If your answer is "yes", your team might be an excellent candidate for our Call for Proposals.

Introduction

The Rathenau Instituut is a partner of SYNENERGENE, a four-year collaborative project funded by the European Commission, aimed at fostering Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in synthetic biology. In order to examine how SynBio can be optimally embedded in society, the Rathenau Instituut and its SYNENERGENE partners aim to conduct "Real-Time Technology Assessments" of potential SynBio applications. To this end, we seek collaboration with iGEM teams, and we will focus on promising ideas for SynBio applications as developed in iGEM projects. Teams can conduct real-time technology assessment in the Policy & Practices (formerly: "human practices") component of their project, and will be supported by SYNENERGENE partners throughout the process. Teams can apply for support and funding by submitting to us proposals.

Rewards and support

Awarded teams will receive €5.000 each and be assisted in their work by the Rathenau Instituut and other SYNENERGENE partners, providing them an excellent way to work on the Policy and Practices dimension of their project through real-time technology assessment, and to enhance the overall quality of their project.

Themes

For this first call we are especially looking for projects dedicated to fighting antibiotic resistance, the use of cyanobacteria as a chassis, and the use of SynBio for environmental conservation. Proposals relating to the three themes are given special preference, but ideas for other themes are also more than welcome! We hope for proposals from teams in the Health & Medicine, Energy, and Environment tracks, but also from teams in the Policy & Practices or Entrepreneurship tracks. (Teams from other tracks are also welcome to submit proposals!)

  1. Antibiotic resistance – Resistance to antibiotics is an increasing public health concern. SynBio may make valuable contributions to addressing this challenge. For example, by developing micro-organisms that produce novel antibiotics, or by creating alternatives to the use and over-use of antibiotics.
  2. Cyanobacteria – SynBio researchers have high hopes that cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) can become a new sustainable platform/chassis, to produce biofuels and other useful substances. How can cyanobacteria be made an important new chassis for iGEM as well?
  3. Environmental conservation – Recently, conservationists and synthetic biologists have started joining hands and exploring ways that SynBio can help protect the natural environment. For example, one of the ideas is using SynBio to tackle ocean dead zones, where marine life has been killed by harmful algal blooms. How could iGEM contribute to nature conservation?

Requirements

Each selected iGEM team will develop two different kinds of future scenarios relating to their project and its applications:

  • Application scenarios

    Application scenarios offer detailed and realistic descriptions of how SynBio ideas can lead to actual applications in society, including: design criteria for the products proposed, target producers and users of the products, the needs and costs involved, legal issues of patenting, regulatory requirements, potential safety, social and ethical implications, and available or conceivable alternatives.

  • Techno-moral scenarios

    A techno-moral scenario is a story, artwork, etc. intended to stimulate imagination, reflection and debate about ways in which SynBio applications may transform our society through wider impacts, including ethical, legal and social issues.

SYNENERGENE partners will take up the scenarios as a starting point for an interactive process of technology assessment, involving a variety of stakeholders and iGEM team members in workshop settings. The ultimate aim of these workshops is develop socially robust agendas for SynBio innovation. The scenarios will also be used by SYNENERGENE partners as a tool in organizing public debates on the future of SynBio. Please expand the boxes below to read more about the scenarios that selected iGEM teams will deliver, and about the envisaged process of Real-Time Technology Assessment.

Proposal and application

Interested iGEM teams may submit a proposal (2 page A4, one thousand words maximum), including:

  1. A description of the intended SynBio project
  2. Potential applications of the project
  3. An indication of practices, actors, regulations and impacts that will be addressed in application and techno-moral scenarios.

Please send your proposal to hq (AT) igem.org by May 01, 2014.

More information

If you would like to receive more information please contact Virgil Rerimassie at the Rathenau Instituut: v.rerimassie (AT) rathenau.nl.